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| ONGOING AND UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS |
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| www.strozzina.org/open_studios/index_en.php |
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| www.strozzina.org/gerhardrichter/e_index.php |
| Staged in collaboration with the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the exhibition presents the work of Gerhard Richter, one of the best-known and most sought-after living painters, in dialogue with works by seven international contemporary artists, who all share Richter’s profound distrust of the image as a guarantee of truth. Following on from Manipulating Reality, which explored the relationship between reality and representation in the medium of photography, this exhibition focus on the disappearance of the image. Gerhard Richter, one of the pioneers in depicting the dissolution of both the motif and the medium, paints over original pictures or uses a blurred painting technique. He deliberately selects trivial or random motifs as the starting point for his paintings. Well aware of the power of images, Richter strives to break or at least question their authority by making his pictures merge or disappear. He plays with reality and appearance and converts figurative images into abstract ones by focusing, for example, on fragmentary details. He pioneered the use of existing images as the basis of his paintings, primarily as a means of transferring the characteristics of one medium to another, and for placing different genres on an equal footing. Through his entire body of work, Richter addresses the difference between subjective perception and the objective experience of reality in which the artist can only offer possible approaches to address the difficult relationship between object and its representation. The CCCS has invited seven contemporary artists who also use the dissolution of the image to engage in a dialogue with Richter’s work. To maintain their own artistic identity the works of each artist will be presented in its own space. Xie Nanxing (China, 1970) uses video and photography as intermediate media for his reflections on painting and the human condition; Lorenzo Banci (IT, 1974) investigates the boundaries between representation and abstraction by painting dissolving shapes in which mere light is the object; while Scott Short’s (USA, 1964) conceptual work is based on photocopying a blank sheet of paper hundreds of times until incidental marks create an accidental image which then becomes a painting. Roger Hiorns (UK, 1975), one of the four artists shortlisted for the 2009 Turner Prize, works with chemical components and choreographs planned incidents to create his sculptural work. Marc Breslin (USA, 1983) uses the pictorial surface like a palimpsest, scratching signs and graffiti into the many layers of paint, thus creating a metaphor for mental processes, memory and oblivion. Wolfgang Tillmans (DE, 1968) treats the photographic paper as canvas. He started by representing everyday subjects and from there he went further into abstraction, following the logic of the medium itself. Antony Gormley (UK, 1950) will produce a site-specific installation for the exhibition, that further develops his research for a new social art where the interplay between abstraction and figuration is the result of a process of dissolution of the human figure. Meanwhile Richter remains true to the medium of painting, yet questions its possibilities, the other seven artists take as their theme the absence (and sometimes impossibility) of making a clear statement by means of a picture today. |
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| The exhibition entitled “As Soon As Possible – Acceleration in contemporary
society” explores the theme of time in our so-called "high-speed society", a lifestyle characterised by rapid communications and production methods dictated by new technologies with which everyone has no choice but to relate and to react in today's world. Increased human mobility worldwide, constant bombardment by information, the ongoing flow of communications, and constant availability are all phenomena that are forcing individuals to cope with growing acceleration even in their personal lives, developing such trends as speed dating (in their love lives), power naps (for physical regeneration), quality time (to spend with their families) and fast food. Obsession with speed and acceleration in manufacturing has been with us since the start of the industrial era, as part of the very concept of modernity, and to artistic movements such as Futurism and Constructivism, which underpinned much of 20th century art. Acceleration and speed are now preconditions for a hyper-fast society that is increasingly globalised - a society whose dangerousness Paul Virilio highlighted by underscoring the paradoxical effect of human immobility, which has reached a point of cultural and imaginative sclerosis, submerged as it is beneath new and ever faster technological tools. Systematizing these positions, German philosopher Hartmut Rosa went as far as to speak of "social acceleration", a phenomenon which distinguishes the contemporary Western world and which has triggered a radical change in the structure of our idea of time. The equation "time is money" has become the prime mover of the economy, demanding the compression of timeframes and the maximisation of increasingly innovative and creative production processes. The project for the exhibition comprises work by Italian and international artists such as Datenstrudel (DE), Marnix de Nijs (NL), Reynold Reynolds (USA), Jens Risch (DE), Michael Sailstorfer (DE) and Arcangelo Sassolino (IT). The works of art all express the passage of time in different ways. Selected on the basis of their different approaches, the work of these artists maps out an artistic journey that will involve the public in strong and unusual experiences both in space and in time, highlighting the tensions and inconsistencies in our ultrarapid society. |
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